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Asahi project looks barely alive, almost abandoned. I know that their explanation of low activity is that they are being active elsewhere, supposedly pushing al

Asahi project looks barely alive, almost abandoned. I know that their explanation of low activity is that they are being active elsewhere, supposedly pushing all their work upstream, but this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress, so I'm worried it will all die soon. And given that the project barely brought some Linux compatibility for m1 and m2 hardware and no prospects for bringing similar compatibility for newer generations - I fear it all will be kinda useless in the end.

kryptiskt 7mo ago
Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that they started supporting M3? That smells like progress to me.
- mathfailure 7mo ago
  One can start working on creation of a teleportation device. Doesn't mean we have it. https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/ https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/ What do you see as progress here? Nothing is supported, everything is "to be announced" (i.e. unsupported).
  - throawayonthe 7mo ago
    they likely meant this progress post showing a desktop booting on an M3 mac: https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1qnddjd/m3_now_has_fedora_43_asahi_remix_working_with_kde/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1qnddjd/m3_now_... albeit with software graphics
    - mathfailure 7mo ago
      Looks believable that they are indeed the devs behind the project, but it's weird to post stuff like that to... reddit? They have a site for the project, why not post there?
      - cermicelli 7mo ago
        You could read the updates... https://asahilinux.org/2025/10/progress-report-6-17/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/10/progress-report-6-17/ Not marketing a not yet complete feature on their website makes total sense. People on internet hating Asahi linux just cause seems like weird to me.
c0balt 7mo ago
> this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress This seems a bit exaggerated, their latest progress report is barely two months old: https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/ They inarguably have slowed down, but this should be expected as the project matures. It has also inevitably now faced the time when new generations of contributors are needed as existing ones retire/ move to other projects.
- charcircuit 7mo ago
  >as the project matures How can it be mature if it can't even boot on newer MacBooks. The slowness does not seem to be due to running out of impactful work that needs to be done.
  - GeekyBear 7mo ago
    The new leadership team blogged last year that their priority would be on upstreaming their existing work. > Our priority is kernel upstreaming. Our downstream Linux tree contains over 1000 patches required for Apple Silicon that are not yet in upstream Linux. The upstream kernel moves fast, requiring us to constantly rebase our changes on top of upstream while battling merge conflicts and regressions. Janne, Neal, and marcan have rebased our tree for years, but it is laborious with so many patches. Before adding more, we need to reduce our patch stack to remain sustainable long-term... Where do the M3 and M4 fit in? Until upstreaming and CI progress, the core team cannot prioritize new hardware. https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ I think the majority of that upstreaming work (that isn't on hold until the kernal is ready for the Rust graphics driver to land) has happened and additional features like DP alt mode for USB C have been demoed. The next update from the team should land on their blog after 6.19 ships
  - electronsoup 7mo ago
    That's some weird gatekeeping. The hardware they do support is supported well.
jeroenhd 7mo ago
Activity has died down as a result of general Linux kernel developer drama, petty in-fighting, and other factors, but that doesn't change the results they did produce during their most prolific phase so far. Without proper support from upstream like AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm (to some extent) are doing, Linux will never work as well on Apple's hardware as it does on normal hardware.

kryptiskt 7mo ago

Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that they started supporting M3? That smells like progress to me.

mathfailure 7mo ago
One can start working on creation of a teleportation device. Doesn't mean we have it. https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/ https://asahilinux.org/docs/platform/feature-support/m3/ What do you see as progress here? Nothing is supported, everything is "to be announced" (i.e. unsupported).
- throawayonthe 7mo ago
  they likely meant this progress post showing a desktop booting on an M3 mac: https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1qnddjd/m3_now_has_fedora_43_asahi_remix_working_with_kde/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1qnddjd/m3_now_... albeit with software graphics
  - mathfailure 7mo ago
    Looks believable that they are indeed the devs behind the project, but it's weird to post stuff like that to... reddit? They have a site for the project, why not post there?
    - cermicelli 7mo ago
      You could read the updates... https://asahilinux.org/2025/10/progress-report-6-17/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/10/progress-report-6-17/ Not marketing a not yet complete feature on their website makes total sense. People on internet hating Asahi linux just cause seems like weird to me.

c0balt 7mo ago

> this has been happening for months and they don't give any reports about their progress This seems a bit exaggerated, their latest progress report is barely two months old: https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/ They inarguably have slowed down, but this should be expected as the project matures. It has also inevitably now faced the time when new generations of contributors are needed as existing ones retire/ move to other projects.

charcircuit 7mo ago
>as the project matures How can it be mature if it can't even boot on newer MacBooks. The slowness does not seem to be due to running out of impactful work that needs to be done.
- GeekyBear 7mo ago
  The new leadership team blogged last year that their priority would be on upstreaming their existing work. > Our priority is kernel upstreaming. Our downstream Linux tree contains over 1000 patches required for Apple Silicon that are not yet in upstream Linux. The upstream kernel moves fast, requiring us to constantly rebase our changes on top of upstream while battling merge conflicts and regressions. Janne, Neal, and marcan have rebased our tree for years, but it is laborious with so many patches. Before adding more, we need to reduce our patch stack to remain sustainable long-term... Where do the M3 and M4 fit in? Until upstreaming and CI progress, the core team cannot prioritize new hardware. https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/ I think the majority of that upstreaming work (that isn't on hold until the kernal is ready for the Rust graphics driver to land) has happened and additional features like DP alt mode for USB C have been demoed. The next update from the team should land on their blog after 6.19 ships
- electronsoup 7mo ago
  That's some weird gatekeeping. The hardware they do support is supported well.

jeroenhd 7mo ago

Activity has died down as a result of general Linux kernel developer drama, petty in-fighting, and other factors, but that doesn't change the results they did produce during their most prolific phase so far. Without proper support from upstream like AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm (to some extent) are doing, Linux will never work as well on Apple's hardware as it does on normal hardware.